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Horizon Teams With Captiv8 To Battle Influencer Fraud

Horizon Media is partnering with AI platform Captiv8 to deliver what the agency calls the first agency-level program that offers unbiased verified and independent measurement and reporting for
agency influencer marketing campaigns.

“Third party verification … is more important than ever," says Sae Cho, director, social strategy & influence, Horizon Media. Cho
adds that the Captv8 platform is the "most advanced partner" that the agency has reviewed because "its functionality provides different protections at various campaign stages – whereas some
tools are more focused on retroactively looking at a post.”

Under the deal, Horizon will receive preferred partner pricing and has an exclusive bespoke partnership with
Captiv8 that includes custom builds within the Captiv8 SaaS platform. And Horizon says it will be the first to integrate its proprietary influencer scoring system within Captiv8’s platform to
assess risk and potential return from every creator engaged.

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The partnership was struck after a six-month beta test period, including verified campaigns for two of the agency’s larger
clients. In one instance, the system alerted Horizon to look more closely at an anomaly and investigate further. An influencer experienced a sudden spike in follower growth, says Cho. However, in
conversations with the influencer, the agency was able to identify that she had hosted a giveaway on her Instagram channel, and there was a clear correlation.

Horizon also ran fictional
scenarios that could happen to clients, such as seeing that 10% of an influencer’s audience is based in Brazil, but 60% of engagement on a sponsored post originates from Brazil. "That is an easy
red flag that the Captiv8 system rapidly flags for our team to act on," she says.

This partnership is the first of additional programs that the two companies will explore as they work
together to tighten protection against fraud in branded content.

Krishna Subramanian, co-founder, Captiv8 said, "We are proud to be one of the only platforms with the technology that
enables brands and agencies to verify creators and fully measure the success of their campaigns."